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DIY Dry Erase Paint Chip Calendar

March 9, 2012

I like to think of myself as a DIY person, but the reality is, I’m not. No matter how many idea’s I pin in pinterest, I am not likely to ever make them. I just get overwhelmed and don’t believe I can make anything nicer than what I can find in a store. Sad, but true. More power to all of you DIY’ers out there though. I am always impressed with the Brides we have who DIY their own wedding details. Those touches are always awesome because they come from the heart.

I was recently forced into needing to DIY my own calendar since I simply have not been able to find one that really met our needs for our business. Of course we keep all our weddings and their dates online in our booking program, as well as on google calendar, which is also on my phone. We make a folder in our file box for each couple as well, with their date printed on the tab. We also write the wedding dates down on a paper calendar too. This may seem like overkill, but I¬†refuse¬†to make a mistake when it comes to this. I was still¬†frustrated¬†that I couuldn’t see all our weddings at a glance whenever I needed to. I wanted to see the whole year at once and I wanted it to be pretty. This was not really available anywhere that I could find. So…. I bit the bullet and made one! My first spark of the idea came from this post.

First I ordered paint chips from¬†Benjamin¬†Moore. They were free! I know you can just go to the hardware¬†store¬†and take them but I wanted a lot and I just didn’t feel right about grabbing them off¬†the¬†shelves. I also did not look at the colors before I ordered them! I love blue and I just took a risk and ordered 6 or 7 blues that were next to each other and would most¬†likely¬†result in the mono-chromatic scheme I love. I then cut them up with a paper cutter while watching Downton Abby.

Next I had Dan help me lay everything out in a way that made sense. I knew I wanted a place for each month, as well as an area to write the names of our couple. I also wanted a place to write weddings that we booked for the following year too! Dan’s a¬†genius, so we were in the clear and it worked out. The big squares are for us to write out our weddings and the long line of small squares is for the next year. Our logo is from one of our thank you notes, that I had made a mistake when writing one for a client. Salvage anyone?

Then I got down to business with my Elmer’s glue!

TA-DA! Now to find a frame.

Thanks Target!

It was crazy satiating to fill it all in with a dry erase marker. Why is it so fun to write with a dry erase? It may stem from being jealous of my high school math teacher writing on the overhead projector. Who knows. Now to admire it on our wall…¬†Our desk is really close to it so all I have to do is glance to the let and there it all is!

I know it’s not perfectly lined up. I know that it was honestly not all that hard to do and when I was actually working on it, it didn’t even take that long. The funny thing is that it took me the better part of a month to go from ordering paint chips, to hanging it on the wall… ok…. make that two months. No matter what, it’s done and I love it and it is exactly what we needed.

[…] blog. If you like that, I bet you will like this easy dry erase project too! Wedding photographers, Bethany and Dan share a great way to create a funky wedding calendar by using paint chips, glue, and a store bought […]

[…] ends: Wedding season is practically here. When I look to the left, here at my desk, I see my sweet DIY Paint Chip Calendar, and We have weddings coming up soon. We are getting those sensors cleaned, those camera cards […]